Helicopters to the rescue in India floods, death toll reaches 93

August 25, 2000
Web posted at: 5:02 PM HKT (0902 GMT)

HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) -- Helicopters plucked people from flooded apartments in the inundated south Indian city of Hyderabad on Friday as the number of people killed by the heaviest rains in more than 40 years rose to 93.

More than 35,000 people had been affected by the floods in Hyderabad and thousands of homes have been destroyed, said the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh state, Chandrababu Naidu.

Hyderabad, the state's capital, which has been trying to become the new center of India's booming software industry, was among the worst-affected areas after it was hit by the heaviest rains in more than four decades, officials said.

Hundreds of people, including some marooned in city apartments, were being evacuated by air force helicopters and boats were also deployed to rescue stranded people, officials said.

The floods in the south followed catastrophic monsoon season flooding in north and northeast India, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh in which about 300 were feared killed and millions left homeless.

But in the eastern state of Orissa, which borders Andhra Pradesh, authorities are battling drought.

Half of Orissa's 30 districts were faced with a grim situation because of the shortage of rain, the state's revenue minister Biswabhushan Harichandan said.

State officials said 500 water pumps were being rushed to the worst-affected districts.

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